The Most Devastating Parts of Esquire’s Story About Climate Scientists’ Despair

Bug-Out Scenarios

How do climate scientists cope with existential dread?

Men sleep on the floor during a heat wave, at a mosque at the premises of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi, Pakistan, June 28, 2015.

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Children cool off in a water fountain just outside Jerusalem's Old City May 27, 2015. A heatwave settled over Israel on Wednesday, with temperatures reaching near 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

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Children run through water fountains on the banks of the Manzanares river in Madrid on July 7, 2015, during the second heatwave of the summer affecting almost the entire country and extending to the rest of Europe.

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A man cools down at the Sunnyside swimming pool during a heatwave in Pretoria, South Africa, February 11, 2015.

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A boy jumps into water at the Nizamuddin Dargah in New Delhi, India as heat wave conditions prevailed in the North with temperatures as high as as the mercury remained above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Farenheit) on June 8, 2015.

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A woman dips her head into a fountain in Budapest, Hungary July 6, 2015. Over the weekend, a heat wave has reached Hungary with temperatures topping 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

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A man lounges in the fountain of the Trocadero in front of the Eiffel Tower during a heatwave on July 1, 2015 in Paris, France. France is currently experiencing a heatwave which has prompted weather alerts as temperatures are expected to reach over 40 degrees celcius.

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A girl drinks water from a bottle near a fountain in the Tuileries Garden in Paris on July 2, 2015, as a heatwave sweeps through Europe.

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A lemur cools off with frozen sherbet at the Saint-Martin-la-Plaine Zoo, southeastern France on July 2, 2015 as a blistering heatwave sweeps through Europe.

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Children cover head with a wet towel to avoid heatstroke in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, June 29, 2015. A Pakistani official says the devastating weeklong heat wave in the southern port city of Karachi has killed over 1,200 people despite a respite in temperatures.

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An aerial view shows sunbathers sitting under colorful umbrellas on the beach in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, on July 1, 2015, amidst a heatwave sweeping across Europe.

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Residents at the Ter Biest house for elderly persons refresh their feet in a pool on a hot summer day in Grimbergen, Belgium, July 2, 2015. The United Nations warned on Wednesday of the dangers posed by hot weather, especially to children and the elderly, as much of Europe sweltered in a heatwave whose intensity it blamed on climate change.

Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters

Two tourists rest in the shade of the Doge Palace for protection from the sun and heat on July 6, 2015 in Venice, Italy.

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People swim at the sea in Havana, April 28, 2015. On Sunday, Cuba registered a temperature of 39.7 degrees Celsius, 0.1 degrees less than the island's historic record.

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A woman wearing a traditional Sevillana dress fans herself while walking during a heatwave afternoon on Marques de Larios street in downtown Malaga, southern Spain, July 1, 2015.

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Pakistani people shift a patient who is affected by heatwave to a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, on July 3, 2015.

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A woman rests along the banks of River Seine on a hot summer day in Paris, France, July 1, 2015, as a heatwave engulfs much of France, U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands and western Germany with forecast highs on Wednesday reaching 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters

A man cools down during a heatwave at the Sunnyside swimming pool in Pretoria, South Africa, February 11, 2015.

If this is what climate change looks like already, the future is pretty much screwed, right? Well, maybe. Despite a few memorable moments of intense realism on the global stage, world leaders have essentially done nothing. Existential dread is fairly common among those who work on climate change on a daily basis.

That’s the theme Esquire’s John H. Richardson explored this week in a fascinating and frank discussion with Jason Box and other climate scientists. I’ve had my own run-ins with climate change despair, and this article strikes me as a fascinating insight into the psychology of an increasingly apocalyptic science. You should read the whole thing, but here are some highlights. Richardson describes Box as “oddly detached from the things he’s saying, laying out one horrible prediction after another without emotion, as if he were an anthropologist regarding the life cycle of a distant civilization.”

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But that doesn’t mean Box is unfeeling. In a photo caption, Richardson reveals the money quote highlighting Box’s ever-present malaise: “The customary scientific role is to deal dispassionately with data, but Box says that ‘the shit that’s going down is testing my ability to block it.’ ”

In the face of all this, Box and his family relocated from the United States to Denmark. Richardson explains their decision:

His daughter is three and a half, and Denmark is a great place to be in an uncertain world—there’s plenty of water, a high-tech agriculture system, increasing adoption of wind power, and plenty of geographic distance from the coming upheavals. “Especially when you consider the beginning of the flood of desperate people from conflict and drought,” he says, returning to his obsession with how profoundly changed our civilization will be.

In fact, Box often thinks about the profound planetary changes that are already underway:

His home state of Colorado isn’t doing so great, either. “The forests are dying, and they will not return. The trees won’t return to a warming climate. We’re going to see megafires even more, that’ll be the new one—megafires until those forests are cleared.”

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But the real success of the Richardson piece is the way he depicts the internal struggle Box deals with on a daily basis.

“But I—I—I’m not letting it get to me. If I spend my energy on despair, I won’t be thinking about opportunities to minimize the problem.”

His insistence on this point is very unconvincing, especially given the solemnity that shrouds him like a dark coat. But the most interesting part is the insistence itself—the desperate need not to be disturbed by something so disturbing.

In a moment of candor I hadn’t seen before, Box revealed to Richardson that he’s already preparing for the worst:

“In Denmark,” Box says, “we have the resilience, so I’m not that worried about my daughter’s livelihood going forward. But that doesn’t stop me from strategizing about how to safeguard her future—I’ve been looking at property in Greenland. As a possible bug-out scenario.”

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Despite what the Esquire article says, Box, whose work I have previously covered on Slate, is a bit of an outlier among climate scientists. Most of them aren’t as willing to talk about the plausibility of nightmare scenarios. Still, his frankness on climate change is welcome.

Ultimately, what scientists are after is truth, even if that truth is personally devastating. For that reason, being a climate scientist is probably one of the most psychologically challenging jobs of the 21st century. As the Esquire article asks: How do you keep going when the end of human civilization is your day job?

I reached out to a few well-known climate scientists for their reactions to the article.

Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University meteorologist whom Richardson quotes, told me, “I would emphasize that it isn’t too late to act, despite the sense one might get from the article. Our only obstacle at present is willpower.” When asked about how many climate scientists struggle with psychological dread over their studies, Mann said, “I honestly don’t know how many of my colleagues reflect on the matter. But those who don’t ought to. What we’re studying and learning is more than just science. It has ramifications for the future of humanity and this planet.”

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By far the most engaging response was from Katharine Hayhoe, a rising star in the climate science community after her work engaging evangelical Christians on the issue was profiled in a Showtime documentary last year. Timenamed her one of the 100 most influential people on the planet for 2014.

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"Hayhoe now lives in Texas, precisely because of its climate vulnerability. More...

Hayhoe now lives in Texas, precisely because of its climate vulnerability. Hayhoe said Texas’ “strident political opposition to the reality” makes it “ground zero for climate change,” which her work embraces. “If I personally can make a difference, I feel like Texas is where I can do it.” But she’s quick to applaud Box’s work and doesn’t criticize his family’s decision to relocate.

In the back of her mind, Hayhoe said she has also factored in humanity’s lack of progress on climate change in her family’s future plans. Like Box and his family, Hayhoe also has a bug-out scenario: “If we continue on our current pathway, Canada will be home for us, long-term. But the majority of people in the world don’t have an exit strategy. … So that’s who I’m here trying to help.”

Eric Holthaus is a meteorologist and a contributing writer at Grist. Follow him on Twitter.